


Communication

by vass



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/pseuds/vass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seivarden's wolf-sister has some questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Communication

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia collection, a multi-fandom challenge that's very, very loosely based on Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette's A Companion To Wolves. If you're an Imperial Radch fan, you might want to read Petra's [FAQ](http://petra.dreamwidth.org/740889.html), or this will make no sense. Short version on how that works in this fic: it's an AU in which some Radchaai military officers are chosen to have mental bonds with huge psychic wolves who fight alongside them. You know, tradition. Since this is the Radch, the wolves have extremely effective and comfortable contraceptive implants anyway, so there are no heats and no Wolves Made Them Do It, and certainly no implications on what it means if your wolfsister has a uterus or not. Ancillaries don't have their own wolves, but they're a way for the wolves to smell and interact with the ship, and thus for the ship to be part of the pack. Pack members have scent names as well as their spoken name, which the wolves choose.
> 
> Apologies to the people who would have betaed for me if I'd asked instead of leaving this to the last minute, writing it in a sleep-deprived rush, and then posting it anyway.

_The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, its wolf stiff and still beside it, splatters of blood staining the snow around them both._

*

"Fuck, you really are an ancillary!" Seivarden had said, during the fighting at Omaugh Palace Station. She had had trouble believing it even from Anaander Mianaai, when Variet couldn't smell pack on her. She didn't smell of wolves at all, Variet had told Seivarden. Uncivilized, or one of those barely civilized provincials who had never even met a wolf. Although she'd been oddly fearless and well informed about what's proper and beneficial for wolves, if that had been the case.

Variet took longer than Seivarden to believe it -- that Breq was an ancillary or that Breq was _Justice of Toren_. But when the three of them walked into _Mercy of Kalr_ 's medical bay -- Breq a little refreshed from sleeping in the shuttle, and insisting on walking unsupported -- the first thing the ship's medic did was connect their communications implants.

Which in Breq's case meant re-enabling them, and un-hiding her ancillary implants. When the link went live Variet's mouth lolled open and her tail started thumping madly, and she broadcast to them both "Pack! Pack!" and then the acrid, complicated scent of _oxidized metal and suspension fluid_ that was the wolf name for _Justice of Toren_ , followed by the _polished wood_ scent that meant One Esk.

Breq took out her handkerchief, undid the axillary button on her shirt, and scented the handkerchief. Solemnly, she held it out to Variet. Variet enthusiastically rubbed her head against it. Breq brushed it against her own temples, then her underarm, mingling their scents, then rebuttoned her shirt and put the handkerchief away.

Breq said aloud, to Medic, "A reunion of sorts. It was necessary for my implants to be concealed. But that also hid me from the pack sense."  
"But..." Medic started to say, then turned it into a short hmmph.  
"This segment was not connected when I last knew Seivarden and Variet," Breq said. Unnecessarily: Medic had obviously worked out in mid-sentence that of course Breq's body was not a thousand years old.  
"I haven't served on a ship with ancillaries," Medic said, "but I know the theory. That you connect Ship to the pack sense..."

While she was speaking, Variet was headbutting Seivarden's leg, prompting her to get out her own handkerchief and scent Variet and herself again. _You already smell like me!_ Seivarden told her, laughing a little even as she gave in.

"Will she want all the officers to do that?" Medic said gruffly.  
Seivarden and Variet both, automatically, looked to Breq. "Not right now," Breq said. "If there are no other wolves on board... I'm sure Variet will let Seivarden or me know if she needs to overwrite any old scents." Such as that of the previous captain and her wolf. _Rather than just pissing in a corner,_ Breq did not add aloud or silently, but somehow Seivarden heard it anyway. Variet caught the thought from her sister, and lolled her mouth wider in laughter. Breq gave her a slow, steady look. Variet was unabashed.

"Captain, I want you to sit down on the bed and wait while I deal with Lieutenant Seivarden and Variet here," Medic said. "I'm still waiting for your data to come through from Omaugh Palace Medical. Their station's being a pain about it."

Breq complied, and Seivarden noted what Medic probably already had, that Breq's energy was flagging again. She leaned back against the headboard while Medic turned her attention to Variet, hands moving silently as she communicated with Ship.

Seivarden gave her sister a quick, practiced survey of her own while Medic worked. Well hydrated. Bright eyes. Alert. A bit too much rib and backbone showing. Some bruising from the three days of open fighting on the station. And in their days on _Sword of Nathtas_ , Seivarden would have given a long lecture to any of her officers whose sister's coat was that dull and coarse, and it had been worse than that six months ago. She felt the familiar dull, glowing coal of shame in her stomach.

Variet nudged her leg, and pushed Seivarden's scent name at her. _Dried flowers and stone._ The smell of a Notai temple where an impatient child would be taken for her dedication rites. Seivarden scratched the base of Variet's skull, and sent Variet's own name back to her. _Overturned stale sheets._ Long ago, when they'd first bonded, she'd been uncomfortable about her sister's scent name, afraid the other officers would laugh at it, at her. No one had, and she was soon embarrassed at her own puppy lieutenant ignorance for worrying about such a normal name.

Medic stilled her fingers, had evidently finished going through whatever checklist of data she was working on with Ship, and turned her attention to Seivarden. Seivarden both wished she knew what Medic could see, and was very glad she didn't know.

Medic made a tsking sound, sighed once, and then said "Well, you're much more undernourished than she is," nodding to Variet, "but I'll sign off on you. Come and talk to me if you have any concerns, anything at all you want to talk about." Seivarden felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead at the words, briskly spoken though they were. She rested her hand on Variet's hackles, willing her not to react visibly to Seivarden's fear.

"All right, Lieutenant, Variet, you can both go. I need to talk to your captain. I'll be keeping her here until I can trust her to stay out of trouble and not go doing too much before she's ready to."

Seivarden relaxed, and didn't bother to repress an audible snort at that piece of optimism.

*

Seivarden was still sleeping while Variet left their new cabin and padded up to Medical to speak to the Captain. She found Breq lying in her bed, awake but with her eyes unfocused and a smell of concentration. 

_Polished wood?_ Variet asked, sending it stronger than usual, to catch her attention.  
 _Unmade bed_ , Breq replied, gravely.  
Variet tried to express some difficult concepts. She had asking her sister, but the answers hadn't made sense, and she wasn't sure if she understood.

 _We were pack,_ she began.  
Breq gestured _yes_.  
 _Then not-pack. Then new pack._ She added the new pack's name, _arming the mines_. _Sword of Nathtas_.  
 _Go on_ , Breq gestured.  
 _New pack dead,_ Variet sent.  
 _Yes._  
Now came the complicated part. _Oxidized metal and suspension fluid._  
She smelled sadness from Breq, and also hesitation.  
 _Old pack dead. Except me,_ Breq sent.

Variet sent _Human pup_ , and Seivarden's name. Then _Oldest pack,_ and the blend of burning resin and flowers that meant Vendaai. Then she sent _Oldest pack dead_ , and then before Breq could answer, _not-dead_ , and then _because_ and Seivarden's name blended with that of her people, her first pack. _She is them, and she is alive,_ Variet concluded.

Breq smelled thoughtful. _Yes,_ she sent. _But only her._  
 _Oxidized metal and suspension fluid_ , Variet sent, and then _alive but only you._  
The scent of grief was sharp and unexpected. _Yes._  
Variet whined softly, then got up on her back legs so she could reach to lick Breq's face.

That done, she asked her other question. _New pack here_ , she sent.  
 _Affirmative._ Very softly, she spoke it aloud, for Variet to get the sound of it: "Mercy of Kalr."  
 _New pack's proper name?_ Variet sent, patiently.  
Surprise. And then a quiet, slow sadness, different from before. _Unknown,_ Breq sent.  
And that made no sense. Why wouldn't she know? If the other wolves and officers were all gone, couldn't the ship's bodies give her the scent?  
 _Sleep now,_ Breq added, and she did smell tired. Variet gave her a final lick before leaving the room.

*

Variet returned to her new den. She jumped up on the bed and burrowed down under the topsheet, forming the blanket den from which she'd been given her name.  
"Blanket-stealing shit," Seivarden mumbled, still mostly asleep, but moved over to give her room.


End file.
